Saturday, February 7, 2015

Growing Old and Praying to Die

The recent ruling by Canada's Supreme Court permitting physician-assisted suicidereminds me of several columns I have written that touch on the subject of death and dying. They include this one, written in 2008 during my dad's last year of life when he was praying each day to die. It’s not easy
growing old. Just ask my dad.

Now 86, he lives
in a nursing home. As a younger man, he worked hard to support his family,
running machines at the factory, loading trucks.

But now he is
frightfully thin, frail and weak, and uses a wheelchair to get around. His hearing isn’t
very good, he finds it hard to read, and his memory is slipping.Sometimes he
remembers I am coming; other times it’s a surprise. Sometimes he thinks I’m
coming when I’m not, and then he is hurt and angry.

Even the small pleasure
of eating is denied him. In his nursing home, residents eagerly look forward to
mealtimes—they help break up the day.

But even that
holds little joy for my dad; since he has trouble swallowing, his food is
mostly pureed.

“It tastes bland,”
he says. He’s right; in order to achieve the right consistency, the dining hall
staff have to add water.

Then there’s the
loneliness. Most of his friends are gone, and so is his wife—she died almost
four years ago. They were married for 53 years.

Sure, they sometimes
argued, and sometimes very loudly. But now he has nobody to talk to at all.

Add it all up, and
he wonders: Why keep on living?

In fact, what he
most wants in life is to die. Every night he prays that God will take him home.
Every morning, when he wakes up, he is disappointed.

I don’t blame him
for feeling that way. It must be hard to depend on others for the simple
necessities in life. It must be hard to be constantly surrounded by illness,
decline and death.

It must be tough
to feel like you are caught in a real-life version of the movie Groundhog
Day—each day is like the day before.

No wonder he has
so little interest in living.

My
dad isn’t the only one who feels this way. Gerhard Friesen, a chaplain at a
Winnipeg personal care home, says that he often hears older people say they
wish they could die.

“It’s
normal for people to feel that way,” he says. “Everything aches, and they’ve
suffered so many losses in life—friends, home, possessions, and sometimes a
spouse.”

He
tells them that God will take them home in His own good time but, as long as
they are still here, he will be there to care for them—and tell them that they
matter to him, their families and to their church, if they belong to one.

But they don’t
always get that message from their churches. Instead of feeling loved and cared
for, they often feel that they don’t matter.

This is especially
true on Sunday mornings, when some churches send volunteers to offer worship
services. Sometimes they feel that churches are doing the minimum possible—sending
less than their best.

“Residents
will tell you on Monday morning when the service was bad,” says Friesen. “They
say, ‘They think that’s good enough for us.’”

That’s too bad.
When it comes to the elderly, caring is non-negotiable—especially for people of
faith. The world’s great religions all teach that older people should be
respected, honoured and cared for.

But as Canada
ages, providing care for seniors will become a challenge. How will places of
worship minister to the large numbers of elderly people in their midst?

Will there be
enough clergy who are trained in the area of spirituality and aging?

Will we be ready
to wrestle with profound issues around the end of life?

Sitting with my
dad a week ago, those thoughts went through my mind. As I watched him sleep, I
knew he was lucky to be in a great personal care home—the staff are friendly,
compassionate, considerate and professional. The level of service is excellent.

But still, his
life is hard. He wants God to take him home. “I pray that one night I will just
lay down and not get up,” he says.Some days, I find
myself praying that for him, too.Postscript: Edward Longhurst died on Feb. 4, 2009 after slipping into a coma.